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berntd Offline OP
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Hello frineds,

After all the great help with the MIDI setup (my other thread), I have now just stumbled across a new problem.

I opened a song, (not entered by me) and there is just no audio output.
The chords are there, I see notation for the piano track but no output.

My MIDI setup has not changed.


How can I diagnose such a problem?


Best Regards
Bernt


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Hi Bernt,

Have you look at the below webpage. It shows a good, basic setup that's a great starting place for solving problems.

I encourage to set your system exactly as shown to begin with.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=461558#Post461558

WARNING: Before changing anything, under "Options", it's possible to save your current setup. Do that as it will allow you to get back to it any time you might want to.

Regards,
Noel





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berntd Offline OP
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Mu audio and MIDI setup work though. They work for all other songs but this one.

And I am using Coyote as per the setup guide you kindly posted.

I get the messages as shown in the yellow boxes when playing the song.

I have tried all sorts of styles from real tracks to MIDI. Nothing plays.

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Last edited by berntd; 07/06/19 12:29 AM.

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That is because this particular song uses Realtracks throughout. So no MIDI is involved at all. The yellow error messages show that you don't have all the required Realtracks for the Guitar and Piano parts installed or, if they are, where BIAB can find them.

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Hi again, Berntd,

Thanks for posting the graphics. It helps a great deal to see your chord sheet and the settings your have in place.

What version of BIAB do you drive? (e.g. Propak 2017, Megapck 2018, etc.)


If this were my problem, here is how I'd approach trying to solve it...

1. Use "File | Save As" and save the song with a slightly new name such as "Black and white rag 2.sgu". We'll use this second file to play around with. Then if anything happens and the file goes a bit wonky, it's always possible to reload the original.

(My first rule of problem solving is NEVER use the original file when trying to workout what's creating an issue.)

2. The songfile in BIAB should now be the newly named file.

3. Unfreeze all the tracks and generate.

Does this help?

If not...

4. Keep tracks unfrozen and go to the options menu.

5. Select "Return to factory settings".

6. Select the upper option "Return MOST to factory settings"

7. Generate the song.

Does this play now?

Regards,
Noel




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If you only have the ProPak or MegaPak, I suspect that you just don't have the underlying RealTracks referenced by the _JAZFRED style. As suggested, make a copy of the file first. Then unfreeze all the tracks. Then look in StylePicker to see if you even have that style (or if it shows N/A). If you don't have it, the first thing I would do is open RealTracks picker and rebuild that list, then open StylePicker and do a slow rebuild of that list, then look to see if you have that style. If not, then select an alternate style you do have (preferably a RealTracks style to make sure they play properly, since you've already validated that MIDI styles play). Validate that the song plays with the substituted style.

It's at this point you just go with the substitution, or look towards upgrading to a Pak that has the styles you want, or just buying the StylePak that contains _JAZFRED.


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berntd Offline OP
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Again sorry for the long delays between replies...

I cannot get this song to work.
Have done the following:
1) reset to most defaults.
2) tested with various styles.

It WILL work when I unfreeze all tracks but then all the original music notation is gone and replaced with the music from the style I choose.

Observations:
1) The song has notation in 2 tracks only. Piano and Banjo. Both appear to be piano notation with bass and treble clef entered.
2) there are also chords shown in the chord view.
3) It appears to play as I see the progress bar moving through the chords bu no sound output. Not even the lead-in ticks.
4) When I view the Mixer->Pianos view, I can see the notes playing/pressing for trombone and banjo but no sound output. I also see no sound level at the Master output at the bottom of the Mixer view. I DO see output level for the 2 tracks as mentioned above.

Here is the killer clue!!!
When I pause the song and manually press the same keys on the same piano view, there IS sound output!!


Where to from here?

I could attach the song but worried about copyright etc.
This came from Tony Wright's collection that he shared somewhere for downloading. It is the Black and White Rag.


Edit: I have heaps of these songs with the same basic issue. I have attached a screen shot You can see the output is there in the Mixer window but nothing at the master.

Regards
Bernt


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song not playing3.jpg (396.66 KB, 79 downloads)
song not playing5.jpg (356.81 KB, 75 downloads)
Last edited by berntd; 07/12/19 04:13 PM.

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Berntd,

Thank you for the image. It helps a lot.

Did you enter the trombone and banjo notation manually?

According to the image that you've posted, there doesn't appear to be a tromobone nor a banjo present (only MIDI Bass, MIDI Piano, Realdrums and a Piano Realtrack that is N/A -- N/A = not available). Strangely, there is notation on your Soloist track which is where the N/A RT Piano is located.

My take on the above is if you have notation entered on the tracks that say "Instrument 0: No Patch Change" -- this means that there is no MIDI sound present to play the notes entered on those tracks. (In MIDI terminology, a 'patch' is a simply a sound.)

Try right-clicking on the tracks that say 'No Patch', one at a time, and then choose a MIDI patch from the menu that appears. This might help.

Regards,
Noel




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berntd Offline OP
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Noel, it was the wrong picture - sorry.
I have corrected the post. Please check it again. It has piano and banjo tracks.

There is output level showing but nothing on the master output.

I did NOT enter the song, it came from Tony Wright's shared achieve here on the forum. Black and White Rag.


Edit: update:
Loading this song into Realband, complains about the ,missing Dixieland style BUT it then plays Piano and banjo as expected.
So why not in BIAB?


Regards
Bernt

Last edited by berntd; 07/12/19 05:44 PM.

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Berntd,

Thanks for the new image. Also, thanks for the information regarding Black and White Rag.

I loaded Tony's version of this song and the style that it uses (_DIXIELD.STY) is an all-Realtrack style (see the image of my chordsheet below). It would seem that your ProPak does not have any of the Realtracks needed for this style. This is where the problem lies.

The freezing that Tony has applied has been done to preserve the Realtrack generation -- which is why it is not working for your MIDI instruments. These MIDI instruments are the underlying style from which the Realtrack style was created. Because Realtracks sit on top of these MIDI tracks, the underlying MIDI (which your mixer shows) were never generated for playback. This means that no sound will be heard. I suspect that the notation and Piano Roll notes that can be seen are from the notation associated with the Realtracks and, as a consequence, this is silent.

To get the style to play, you would need to unfreeeze all the tracks and then generate the song and re-freeze the tracks if you want to preserve the generation. The default style of ZZJAZZ, though, would not be the best one for Black And White Rag.

There are a few MIDI styles that will do the job for you, though.

Try this....

With the chords for Black And White Rag loaded in from Tony's versions...

1. enter style picker

2. type DIXI in the filter

3. scroll down to the MIDI styles (MIDI styles will not have _ or = or M_ as the beginning characters in their names.)

4. see if you have a style called DIXILAND or TRADDIXI -- one of these should do the job.

5. unfreeze the all the tracks and generate

I imagine that Tony has put these files together using the UltraPak. Since this particular package has all Realtracks, Realdrums, Styles, etc., it is likely that you will run into this problem again with any song that's opened and whose Realtracks are not part of the ProPak package.

Regards,
Noel

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Hi Noel,

I really appreciate your great help!

I only have styles:
DIXIFAST
J_DIXIE3
TradDixie

I cannot even find out which style pack would include the _DIXIELD.STY. At least I now know that it is a Realtrack style!

Can I not somehow get the tracks that have notation to generate MIDI??


Separately:

I just unfroze it and used TradDixie style.
It works but sounds terrible !!!



Best regards
Bernt


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The sounds depend on the synth being used. BiaB may be using the Windows basic synth, thus the terrible sound. May want to try Coyote Forte or a better GM synth.

Generally I've started going back to hardware sounds for any MIDI I use.


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